


You're just like your father

by WritingPains



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 13:08:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18572131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingPains/pseuds/WritingPains
Summary: Steve says something that draws an unexpected reaction from Tony. He definitely wasn't prepared to hear the truth.





	You're just like your father

Tony has heard a lot of things in his life that people throw at him with the hope that they would impale, make him bleed, make him hurt. But he grew up in a household with parents that were too busy to remember he existed at the best of times and outraged that he did at the worst. He went to a school where he was in classes with students five years his senior. He didn’t have friends; he had bullies. He didn’t have parents; he had elusive and angry housemates. There’s very little he has to deal with that really affects him the way it would a weaker man. 

Almost losing Pepper, that was hard. That hurt. That was ten million swords rammed through his heart with the force of a bullet. Seeing the impending invasion during the battle of New York. That scared him down to his bones and made him ache when his mind forced flickers of images to appear. Watching his best friend plummet to the ground in a dead suit during the civil war. He could have been run over by a dozen freight trains, and that wouldn’t have come close to how hard that was to see. Knowing that his parents had died at the hands of an assassin and not at the fault of his father. That stung, and then that little prick of pain grew into an all-consuming rage the moment he knew Steve had failed to fill him in on that particular nugget of gossip.

So, what he’s trying to say is that he’s not impenetrable. He  _ can  _ be hurt. It’s just not that easy to do. It takes time and thought to launch an attack on him that could give any effect.

So, colour him surprised when words slip out of Steve’s mouth in the form if a compliment and cause his mind to cave in on itself.

“You’re just like your father.”

The blow is offered with a jovial pat on the back (and jeez Cap, learn your strength, you almost sent him through the floor) and a small smile. Tony  _ knows _ it’s supposed to be friendly. He also knows it's not a dig at him, knows Cap isn’t aware of the man his father turned into, but the damage is done, and Tony has no opportunity to try and hold together the pieces of his sanity. 

“Tony?” 

Steve's voice tries to catch him before he leaves, attempts to warmly guide him back so that he can offer answers about his very un-Stark-like reaction, but Tony is out of reach, and Cap is left staring at the door that Tony has just run through.

Steve has seen many shades of Tony Stark. Some of them so dark they seem to pull you in, like a black hole or a dark room your curiosity won’t let you ignore, and some so bright and cheery that it brings a smile to the face of everyone in the room. He realises this at the same point that he understands how close he and Tony became  _ before _ the Civil War disaster. Because Steve has seen more than Tony’s faux-persona, he’s seen Tony smile for a crowd, and he’s seen him smile after telling a particularly rude joke. The shades he saves for the people he considers friends, and Steve was proud to be in that category. Indeed, it was a blessing to be trusted.

What he hasn’t seen is Tony with that shocked and hurt in his eyes. It was there for almost no time at all, blink and you’ve missed it, but it was there, and Steve thinks the image might be burned into his mind now. Sure, he’s seen something similar. What he saw in Siberia was similar, but that was a guttural, animalistic reaction. It was pain mixed with feral anger. Just now, though, there was none of that anger. It would almost have been a relief because at least it would have been familiar, an area which he knows how to navigate. What he just saw was unchartered territory for him. He’s at a loss.

“Uh… what just happened?” he asks the empty room.

Natasha chooses that moment to enter the room. She looks at Steve, then the door Steve is staring at, and she sighs.

“You guys couldn’t last one minute, could you?” she huffs.

“What?”

“You and Tony,” she clarifies. “Arguing already?”

Steve doesn’t blame her for coming to that conclusion. He and Tony don’t exactly have the best track record for amicable conversations, but he does think they’ve been doing better since the team got back together. Whether it’s as conscious on Tony’s part as it is on Steve’s is a different story though. Steve wants things to be  _ better _ than they were before.

“We weren’t arguing, we… I don’t even know what’s happened. Tony was joking about how he was going to invite Pepper over for some fondue, and… and it was something Howard had said, back in the day.”

“You told him he was like his father?” Natasha guesses, coldly.

_ Why is everyone reacting like that? _ Steve thinks.

“I don’t understand.”

“To tell you the truth, no one does.”

Natasha, holder of all secrets, doesn’t know something? Especially something about one of her teammates? It’s unheard of.

“Ok, get that look off your face,” Natasha says, annoyed. “Even I don’t know everything. Besides, other than what I put in and what we’ve learnt since we started keeping tabs on him, Tony’s file is clean. Almost nothing about his childhood, bar what was public knowledge.”

“How is that possible?”

Natasha gives him a look, kind of amused, kind of frustrated.

“You’re asking how Stark, tech genius extraordinaire, managed to completely clear a file of information he didn’t want us to have? Gee, I dunno Steve. Magic?”

Steve nods his understanding and leans against the kitchen island.

“It wasn’t meant to be an insult, but he definitely took it that way.”

“Surely, even you’ve noticed that he rarely mentions his father, and when he does, it’s with rigidity and derision he doesn’t give to anyone else?”

Now that it’s been pointed out, Steve can see she has a point, though he resents her use of the word ‘ _ even _ ’, as though he’s blind to everything else that goes on around here. Tony has never said a kind word about his father. He thinks he may have assumed it was because the official story of his Father’s death was that he had been drunk driving. It’s probably not hard to be angry at the man for something like that, but now that Tony knows the truth, is that  _ still _ the reason? Or is there something else to it?

“Maybe you should ask him? Lord knows the two of you need to sort out that strained friendship you have going on. Maybe this will help?”

Steve isn’t sure, but he guesses it’s worth the try. He heads down the stairs to the lab, not bothering to take the elevator. He’s been having problems with it ever since he got back, and he thinks it might have something to do with the fact that Friday has refused to talk to him the entire time he’s been living there. Not that he blames her. She only has Tony’s best interests at heart. He needs as many people in his corner as he can get, since he has too much experience with people  _ not  _ being in it, or deserting it after they’ve made their promises.

He reaches the bottom floor, and to his surprise, he can see Tony in his lab, watching a screen from a fold-out chair. He can see Howard talking about something when a little boy shows up and start to play with a model town in the background. Howard seems enraged, and he’s looking at the kid with disgust. He shouts to someone off-screen and has the boy, presumably Tony, taken away. Something uncomfortably clenches at steve’s heart.

“Knock Knock,” Steve calls as he wraps his knuckles against the glass. “It’s me.”

Tony doesn’t jump, which is good and gives him an exasperated look. The doors open without instruction and Steve awkwardly steps inside.

“You know you don't have to say ‘knock knock’ when you’re knocking, you know?”

Steve chuckles uncertainly.

“Sit,” Tony offers, pointing to the other fold-out chair. 

Steve does as he’s told and then searches the lab for something, he can use to start a conversation. Upon finding nothing, he ends up sitting in silence, praying Tony will break it for him. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long.

“I don’t talk about dear old dad often,” Tony offers like a lifeline, “because the man was a colossal prick.”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath, unsure what he’s supposed to make of that.

“See? This is why I don’t talk about it. Especially with you, Cap, the man who knew my father in his good days. You, who still thinks my father was that idiot with too big ideas and too bright a personality. An all-around swell guy, right? And maybe he was… but I never knew him like that. 

“When I was born, he’d already been broken by what he’d seen. He was continually warring with himself about what he was doing. Some days he wanted nothing to do with the weapons industry, and other days revelled in the lives his creations stole. Every time I was kidnapped as a kid, he would fall between anger at  _ me  _ for being stupid enough to get taken, and anger at himself for being in a position where people would try it for money.

“He was completely unstable by the time I was seven. He used to lock me in my room for days on end, forbidding anyone to let me out. He, more often than once, knocked me around a little.”

“Why didn’t you  _ tell _ anyone?” Steve asks confused and reeling.

Tony scoffs.

“I didn’t know it wasn’t normal. People used to talk about how their parents would ‘kill them’ if they failed an exam or were late home. I assumed everyone was the same.”

Tony jumps up and starts to pace, his movements agitated and furious. Steve stays stock still and silent. Clearly Tony needs to get this off his chest, hard as it is to hear. He doesn’t like to imagine Howard unhinged and abusive. He hates to imagine his friend turned into something so vicious, but it makes sense, he guesses. Not just that Howard could change so drastically, but in Tony’s behaviour. There was an oddity to it, something Steve couldn’t quite put his finger on. There was always something about Tony that was guarded, and he assumed it had started after Obadiah Stane. Unfortunately, the betrayals had started much earlier and left Tony feeling incapable of trust.

Something cold unfurls in Steve’s chest as he realises how hard it must have hit to know that Steve had lied about his parents. He obviously allowed himself to trust the team, and it had come back to slap him in the face.

_ I’m a fool, _ Steve berates himself.  _ After all the self-righteous crap about him not keeping secrets. I led him to believe we were a unit of trust, only to go against my own words. _

Maybe Tony’s reaction was less about knowing how his parents really died, and more about realising he’d been drawn into a false hope. A hope that he and Steve could be honest with each other about things and not worry that they were holding information back.

“I didn’t understand what was going on for years,” Tony admits. “And by that point, I was old enough to be ashamed that I never fought back. I was always made to feel small. Not just by my dad, but I was the youngest in my class. Had been ever since I was in first grade. I jumped to fifth almost immediately. Do you know how much people hate learning that someone four years their junior is smarter than them?”

Steve doesn’t, but he’s being hit with realisation after realisation so hard that he can’t seem to get his footing again. Tony wasn’t being smug about how smart he was. He was justifying himself, refusing to allow anyone to tear him down for it because that’s what he’d been doing  _ all his life. _ How has Steve failed to notice any of this? Worse, how has the entire team managed to assume he was a narcissist when he’s just been psychologically driven into these defensive techniques? Tony has always been quick to retort when someone tries to put him down, and Steve has always been pushing him to that point, doubting how genuine he was.

When did  _ he, _ Captain freaking America, become the bully?

“Don’t look at me like that, Steve. Much as it sucks, people have it worse. If anything, I got off lucky. I may not have had the best parents, and Dad did calm down by the time I was sixteen, but some people were in the same situation as me and didn’t have even half of the silver spoon I was born with. And I don’t blame dad, not anymore. He had a hard time. I think he had high hopes when he had me, and things just changed and became out of control. It happens. I guess I wasn’t the best-behaved kid. Hell, even now I drive people to kick the crap out of me. I can’t make him take any of the blame if I’m the one constant in all the situations.”

Tony’s self-deprecating laugh makes Steve wince. He stands up now, refusing to allow Tony to blame himself for a second. He ignores the jerk of panic from Tony and pulls him into a hug. This close, Tony is far smaller than he’s used to noticing. It takes a moment, but Tony lets himself relax into it, and he pats Steve’s back when he’s had his fill.

“Uh… invasion of personal space aside, I, uh, thanks for listening. I didn’t… I wanted you to understand why… I was  _ such a diva  _ upstairs, and you deserved to know why.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve says earnestly. “I appreciate the trust.” 

Tony winks and then waves Steve out, turning his back on him to fiddle with something on the table, though even Steve can tell his mind isn’t with it. It’s a polite dismissal, so Steve leaves without another word, granting Tony the time to parse through his thoughts alone.

It’s a step, Steve thinks, and they can only go up from here. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The entire time I was writing thing, I couldn't get that duck vine out of my head. You know? 'You're no good duck. You're just like your father.'  
> One of my favourite vines of all time.
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it!
> 
> Comments and Kudo's are my fave!


End file.
